


Beginning

by melodious_me



Series: Prompt fills [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley-centric (Good Omens), Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Gen, the tin being the summary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:29:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22761730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melodious_me/pseuds/melodious_me
Summary: The Earth has just begun and Crowley tries to figure it out and quantify the amount of existential crises necessary given the circumstances.A lot is a good enough guess.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Prompt fills [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1635397
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7
Collections: Good Omens Celebration





	Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> My prompt fill for "Beginning".  
> I have many thoughts on how exactly things might or might not have gone South for poor little Crowley, and this is one - not very dramatic, admittedly - of them.
> 
> Enjoy :)

This moment would later be known as The Beginning.

Luckily, Crawly didn’t know this, or he might have scoffed. In his defence, he hadn’t been in the best of moods for quite some time now – although time was a rather misleading term, considering time was only a seven-day-old concept. Nevertheless, Crawly was in a foul mood. He still hadn’t figured out this entire demon-thing. Many fellow demons had tried to assure him that there wasn’t much to figure out in the first place. They’d been angels, they’d Fallen, they were demons, Lucifer – Satan – was their leader, end of the song. Crawly was convinced that the name thing alone held enough potential to cause at least three existential crises*, but there you go.

But Crawly was far from worrying about his name. He was working through things chronologically. So his first and foremost worry was the lack of memories he had from his time before the Fall. Nothing graphic, at least. And nothing belonging together. There were scents he couldn’t place, tastes – boring, dull ones – and, worst of all, feelings. While figuring things out, Crawly found the memory of feelings and emotions and all things vague the worst. Because most of them were absent now. Whatever he’d had before the Fall – oh, how he wished he’d remember – it was entirely and inarguably gone. And it had been nice. And now he missed it†.

But there was nothing to be gained from mourning over lost memories, even Crawly could see that, and so he moved on with his thoughts. There was the Fall. He tried to not remember it too closely. There were emotions involved, all right, but not the kind he intended to revisit regularly. Neither were the smells, sensations, or the taste, thank you very much. And although he didn’t like remembering the specifics of it, there was that nagging question of Why. He wasn’t yet sure whether he minded or regretted Falling, his experiences as a demon too few to judge. There was the pain, all right. The business with the actual Falling hadn’t been fun, especially since he’d had two perfectly functional wings when he’d started his unfortunate descent and the feeling of utter helplessness that had only gotten worse when his wings had started to burn was something he could have lived without as well. Not to mention the sulfur. Or the hassle he’d had with his corporation.

But those had all turned out to be temporary things. The sulfur was still something he had to get out of his nose, but his wings had grown back, and once you had reached rock bottom it was rather difficult to be pushed off of considerable heights. There were still aches and pains in his wings, that unfathomable hole in his chest he didn’t at all understand, but he was sure they’d fade with time, now that time existed. He’d get used to his corporation, the weird eyes and even weirder eyesight, the ability to only smell a bit with his nose and a whole lot more with his tongue – he was sure that wasn’t how things were supposed to work but here he was. The company in Hell was, well, hell, but he couldn’t remember being particularly fond of any of the angels upstairs, either. And they had all been angels for the same time he had been one, right? Angels couldn’t be any better.

So, as far as his Fall was concerned, Crawly wasn’t exactly sure he’d deserved it, action-wise. He hadn’t spoken against the Almighty, hadn’t demanded revolution, hadn’t even complained about the food – although how and why he remembered that he hadn’t liked the food upstairs was, and always remained, a mystery to him. He had talked to Lucifer, all right, listened to his thoughts and ideas, discussed them even. He was a bright fellow, his ideas not altogether bad or evil, but Crawly had had the feeling rather early on that he’d get his hurt feelings mixed up in there somewhen, and that’s when it all went South. And the next thing he knew was the Fall. And ever since, he’s been mostly uncomfortable and bored and annoyed. So when he was given the task of tempting Eve to eat the apple – whoever Eve might be – Crawly had been almost happy about it. Although he had difficulties with the word tempting. He didn’t feel like a tempting creature, especially not as a snake. Even worse, he wasn’t entirely sure about the exact definition of ‘tempting’. If it was giving people a nudge into a certain direction they were curious about anyway but not bold enough to pursue, then sure, he could earn his bread with it. But to make them do something that went entirely against their nature and baser instincts? Not only did he not know how to do that - it was also a fair bit against _his_ baser instincts.

His musings were interrupted when he broke onto the surface of Earth.

This, now, this was different. In a good way, he thought, but one shouldn’t get ahead of oneself. First impressions could always be deceiving. It was comfortably warm. For some reason, that was the first thought that made it into words in his head. But it was pleasantly warm, especially in comparison to Hell, where it was either boiling hot or cold and damp. Crawly had just made out a rock from which he could both observe the area and bathe a bit in the sun when something else entirely caught his attention.

There was an angel. Standing in the Garden. A white, prim and proper angel. With a flower in his hand. He looked delighted.

It wasn’t until later – after he had tempted Eve, who in fact and to Crawly’s great relief had already thought about taking a bite – that he dared to talk to the angel. His entrance wasn’t exactly smooth, but that didn’t matter anymore when the angel confessed that he had given away his sword.

“You what?”

“I gave it away,” the angel repeated whiningly.

For a second, Crawly was speechless. And as the angel rambled on, as he watched Adam and Eve leave the Garden, as the first rain started to pour from heaven, Crawly found a name for this very strange moment. It was selfish, considering those two humans had just lost everything, but Crawly figured that, being a demon and all, he’d get away with it.

So even as humanity left Paradise and the first rain fell onto the surface of the Earth, Crawly knew that this, oh, this was the Beginning.

* * *

* This would also prove to be right. The first one was had briefly after he had left Eden as he tried to make amends with the name Hell had given him – Crawly. This crisis was ultimately ended when he changed his name to Crowley. The next two weren’t so much had about the names themselves but about very related things. Starring there would be his decision to finally acquire a first name and Aziraphale’s reaction to it. Of course, he had known that he’d always be Crowley for him, same as his angel would always be Aziraphale – or at least a slurred version of that name – for him. But for a moment, Crowley had feared that Aziraphale wouldn’t approve of his name. The consecutive crisis was had over why on Earth it mattered that much to him what the angel thought about his chosen name, which was by then a merely rhetorical question and a crisis he had every second decade anyway. The last and final one was had when Crowley realized that ‘Crowley' wasn’t exactly a typically female name and that people cared way too much these days whether the name matched the gender matched the appearance of the person in front of them. A small crisis, really, by comparison.[return to text]

† It’d take him centuries to come, but eventually Crowley figured out what it was – Her love and his Grace, those things that made a difference between an angel and a demon. But by then, he had already replaced this celestial love with something equally strong.[return to text]

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!  
> If I have one Crowley in there instead of a Crawly, give me a subtle hint, I don't see it anmyore.  
> As always, if I missed any tags or made mistake somewhere, please let me know!  
> And I'd be very happy if you left Kudos or comments :)
> 
> Lots of love,  
> Mel


End file.
